The fact that I take more than a passing interest in archeology does not mean I do not believe the Bible. However, I find it interesting that the Bible refers to
Nephilim as "The Sons of GOD", and says that they were evil. Before he died, Sadam referred to the United States as "the Great Serpent of SHATAIN".
"And, there were giants upon the earth in those days".
While Neanderthal was only about 4 1/2 to 5 feet tall, Cro-Magnon was between 8 and 9 feet tall. I believe they would have qualified as "giants". While Neanderthal was shorter, he was also stocky and strong. Cro-magnon, on the other hand was slender, and more agile. From everything I've read in the Bible (and in nearly every version of the Bible), the unions between the Sons of GOD and the daughters of man was not approved of. My guess is that there may have been a number of confrontations between them. However, Neanderthal would have been throwing stones, and had wooden spears that didn't leave their hands. They would have had to be next to their oponent and jabbed them with it. Cro-magnon, on the other hand, had throwing spears, and a device that the butt of the spear would rest in, and when thrown, would add distance to it. Clearly, Cro-magnon would have had superior weapons in any confrontation.
TO THE "VICTOR" GO THE SPOILS...
If Cro-magnon came away victorious from any confrontation with Neanderthal, what spoils would he have been interested in? Cro-magnon already had more advanced weapons and tools, so most of the spoils of Neanderthal would have been left behind, except perhaps, for the skins, and the women. When I look at later societies, such as Egyptian, or Roman, those spoils were made slaves, not wives. However, man's instinct being what it is, the Neanderthal women may also have been sex slaves.
When MacArthor said "I WILL RETURN", he evacuated, but left a number of nurses behind. They were raped repeatedly by the Japanese Army.
When Africans were brought here as slaves, the movie "ROOTS" only showed one woman being forced into sex with her master, but if the truth be known, I'll bet many of them were, and many of them, repeatedly, and many also got pregnant that way.
It is quite possible that births among Neanderthal Women with Cro-magnon men outnumbered the births of Cro-magnon women with their Cro-Magnon husbands.
Speculation: If you cross a small dog with a St Bernard, you get a dog that's somewhere in between in size, and looks. If you cross Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal, you get Homo-Sapien???
Something else that I found interesting:
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Who Were the Nephilim?
Another logical interpretation for the ''Sons of God'' is they were other created men. It is largely assumed that Adam and Eve were the only humans created in the beginning, but the Bible does not describe every person on earth, nor even everyone that was important to God. Only key individuals or situations are included within the text, and we can not say with certainty that God only created one pair of humans.
There is also a fable, or myth (what ever you might want to call it) about "Lilith" being created the same time as Adam. Although, the way the story goes, it sounds a bit far-fetched, they say that since it has survived through time till now, it may have some value. Supposedly, she was able to speak GOD's true name, rise up into the air, and fly to anywhere she wanted to go. Makes me wonder why Adam could not do the same. Did his tongue get tangled up in his eye teeth?
But, archeology does bare out things in the Bible. Cro-magnon was tall, and for anyone up to 6 feet tall, would be thought of as giants. (I admit, I would really like meeting a Cro-magnon woman. Someone else's turn to get a crick in their neck from looking down into my eyes.)
Referring to them a evil would sound a lot like what happened during King Author's Crusades into the Holy Land. In the eyes of Islam, they represented the Devil. Even today, anyone with blue eyes carries the mark of the Devil. (And, that includes me. Naima's father would like to have killed me.)
I believe what we are reading in the Bible is the Neanderthal version of it all.
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The genetic variation at the microcephalin gene, a critical regulator of brain size whose loss-of-function by damaging mutations may also cause primary microcephaly, is claimed to be the most compelling evidence of admixture thus far. One type of the gene, dubbed haplogroup D having an exceptionally high worldwide frequency (~70%), was shown to have a remarkably young coalescence age to its most recent common ancestor ~37,000 years ago. The remaining types (non-D) coalesce to ~990,000 years ago, while the separation time between D and non-D was estimated at ~1,100,000 years ago. An evolutionary advance was assumed, even though positive selection was never as all-decisive as to wipe out the remaining 30% of non-D haplogroups (in which case no introgression could have been suggested) and as for now, a measurable genetic advance has not been attested.[6]
Both the worldwide frequency distribution of the D allele, exceptionally high outside of Africa but low in sub-Saharan Africa (29%) that suggests involvement of an archaic Eurasian population, and current estimates of the divergence time between modern humans and Neanderthals based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), are in favor of the Neanderthal lineage as the most likely archaic Homo population from which introgression into the modern human gene pool took place. [7][8]
The case for fertile reproduction was recently revived by studies that claim signs of admixture (introgression), finding unusually deep genealogies in highly divergent clades (genetic branches). However, most of the times this feature can be explained by balancing selection. For instance, estimates on the gene for red hair vary from 20,000 to 100,000 years ago[9][10], though there is no compelling evidence to assume red hair didn't coexist with other hair colours all along within one and the same population. Moreover, Lalueza-Fox and colleagues found a different variant of the same gene in their Neanderthal samples, that similarly disabled a protein to the same effect
Considering that in that era, there was no "social code of conduct", laws regarding sexual offenses, the victor in any confrontation would have been free to do as he pleased. However, it seems that Cro-magnon lead a hard life. Evidence has been found that a few survived with vertibrae in the neck fused from injury, and it is believed that their society took care of the injured. Is it possible that Neanderthal didn't go quietly after all?
What I have not been able to find is the origin of Cro-magnon. Were they actually an off-shoot of Neanderthal? Or were they another evolutionary branch.